A Perfect Way to Test One's Hypothesis
by Thomas Tom Tom
Summary: Robin's scientific experimentation method certainly gets results...


**A/N: Well, it's no Fear Me, but hey.  
**

**The idea for the...umm...integral...plot point is from Red Dwarf, season 8 episode 2.**

**This is another one which benefits extraordinarily from Slade & the Snipers miniaturised and playing "Quicksand" (La Roux) feat. Madam Rouge.**

**This may become a full fledged story but for now just a nutty oneshot. Enjoy. And Review. **

* * *

**A Perfect Way to Test One's Hypothesis**

The steel doors were shut. The Titans were tucked away in their beds: Robin in a hammock; Starfire floating a few feet above a mattress to catch her when she woke up and inevitably fell out of the air; Raven slept in the bed with the hooded headboard; and Beast Boy slept in a bed to which Cyborg had once welded curved strips of metal so that it rocked from side to side whenever one moved at all, like a cot.

Cyborg himself, however, was not in bed.

He was in his lab, guddling with various elements in canisters, compounds in test tubes and a liquid in an old aerosol can that had once contained deodorant.

He didn't know what he was making. He'd find out when it was finished.

The metal man looked at the clock on the wall. 2:37. Far too late to be working with dangerous chemicals.

He sighed, put a stopper over the test tube containing his most colourful creation, turned off the lights, shut the door and clanked off to bed.

* * *

Robin woke up at about half five in the morning. He slid off the hammock and into his boots, ready and waiting for him to do just that – Robin was insanely prepared for everything; and he slept in almost his full uniform. He grabbed and clipped his belt around his waist from the chair upon which it had lain the night before. Checking his mask was on, he made for the door.

He opened the door and strode out into the hallway. The smell of tea brewing informed him that Raven was already awake, as always. _Raven. _The one person he had difficulty dealing with. _Because just the sight of her makes you about as useful as Internet Explorer._

Robin started to follow the enticing smell.

As he strolled down towards the smell of tea (and therefore Raven) another smell – this one much less appealing – drifted in from the laboratory wing. _Cyborg. _Another experiment.

His mind blanked as the door opened to reveal Raven standing with a mug in one hand and the other on her hip.

She registered that Robin was standing right in front of her with a squeak that was badly covered up with a cough.

"What _is _that?" she said, wrinkling her nose at the foul odour that wafted through the building.

"No idea." he said, grinning inwardly at the squeak. "Let's find out!"

Robin took a bewildered Raven by the arm and led her down (protesting vehemently) towards the lab.

He pushed and held the door open for her with an exaggerated gesture.

"Always the gentleman." she said sarcastically. "Well, _that_ test tube looks _fairly_ harmless..."

Raven walked over, put her tea on a bench, plucked the test tube from its rack and scrutinised it. She took the stopper off the top and peered down into the sunshine yellow fluid.

"Lovely colour." Robin commented, coming over to look.

Raven made a non-committal "hmph" noise.

Robin laughed and ruffled her hair affectionately. "You love it _really." _

Raven waved her hand. An energy blade sliced the air beside Robin's hand and he retracted it hurriedly.

The blade cut so close it shaved a few of Raven's hairs off.

One fell into the test tube and the mixture began fizzing violently.

Robin and Raven looked at each other in panic and Raven slowly and cautiously put the tube down in the rack where it had previously lain.

The liquid in it slowly changed colour from yellow to a glossy red.

"Okaaay..." Robin said. He took a pipette from the sideboard and took a small sample of the liquid.

Feeding it into the computer, he could reveal nothing more than that it wasn't harmful and would probably only be temporary. The computer flashed with a red "Error" sign when he tried to find the properties of the mysterious fluid.

"Well," he sighed, "only one way to find out..."

Raven's eyes widened as he poured a small measure of the stuff into a beaker and raised it to his lips.

"Robin!" she interjected, much louder than she had intended to.

_Why don't you just say "OH MY DEAR GOD IF YOU KILL YOURSELF I'M GOING TO RAISE YOU FROM THE DEAD AND KILL YOU AGAIN YOU USELESS DEVILISHLY HANDSOME IDIOT I LOVE YOU" instead? _her mind's source of bad ideas, Stupidity, who for some reason had a Bolton accent, added unhelpfully.

"Are you crazy? What if it does something insane to you? What then?"

"Calm down, Rae," he laughed. "It's not going to kill me, and if it does do something insane it'll only be temporary. So you won't lose this handsome face forever, ok?"

Happy toyed with the idea of sending a smile across Raven's face but eventually decided against it, after several sporadic bursts of light machine-gun fire were aimed in her direction by the other emotions.

"I'll just drink a tiny bit. It'll last for a minute at most." Robin poured most of the sample back into the test tube, leaving only a dribble in the beaker.

Raven relaxed a total of 0.00125 percent.

"OK." she allowed. "But if _anything _happens, I'm screaming for Cyborg."

Robin nodded nonchalantly and downed the red liquid.

Nothing happened for about five seconds, then Raven started to feel weird.

_What? He drank it, not me! _she thought.

"Rae?" Robin asked concernedly, sounding oddly fuzzy to Raven. "You look funny...your eyes are going a lighter shade of purple than normal. Okay, they're going pink. Pink. Rae?"

Ten seconds. Raven's vision blurred then rapidly sharpened again.

Twenty seconds. Raven started to feel uncharacteristically interested in Robin.

Thirty seconds. She started purring softly. _Purring? What is UP with me?_

Forty seconds. Before Robin could react she was up against him, hands running around his broad shoulders.

Fifty seconds. She couldn't stop herself and kissed Robin as hard as she could. Raven closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of his lips on hers. Part of her (Intelligence) noted that this wasn't exactly "Raven" behaviour, but she completely ignored it.

Fifty five seconds. She moaned softy into Robin's mouth and pulled herself closer.

Sixty seconds. Her eyes snapped open and returned to their normal colour. She suddenly released Robin and stepped back aghast.

"Oh my...um...I...uh...R-robin, I'm so sorry! I don't know what...what...came over me!" she said, flustered and confused by what she'd just done.

Robin staggered back a few steps and examined the empty beaker drunkenly.

"I think I do..." he said, his words slightly slurred. "This stuff had your hair dropped in it? It must have done something with your DNA that when combined with the DNA of someone else screws up your hormones and well, that happens. Not that I'm complaining."

He smiled lopsidedly.

"What we have here is a sexual magnetism serum. Except it only works on you. Because it has your DNA in it."

His cute _(Getting real tired of your shit, Happy...) _lopsided smile morphed into an evil grin that went around his face twice and drew a pair of devil horns on the top of his head.

Raven raised her hands and was about to blast him through the wall if he even _implied_ that he should keep it when his expression sobered and he said "I'll get rid of it."

Raven lowered her hands and stepped back.

"Oh. Okay then." she said, hating herself for being so cynical (but still not trusting Robin one hundred percent). She shuffled her feet awkwardly before hurriedly floating out of the lab.

Robin took the test tube and slotted into a small compartment on his belt. This was the same compartment in which he stored other things-he-might-one-day-be-able-to-use like blackmail photos, recordings of conversations, and ballpoint pens.

"This could come in handy someday." he said as he sealed the compartment to all but his own access.


End file.
